The Cowboys from Hell: Book I of the Bfr Chronicles

By Jason Christian and Aaron Gabel

The University of Nebraskas best defense team ever, the Cowboys from Hell, are well known for their wild pranks and crazy stunts. But soon they will learn that everything comes with a price.

After one of their best games ever, theyre partying as usual, along with some friendsbut in the course of the night, they get into a drunk-driving accident that changes their lives in ways that none of them could have ever imagined. They have unwittingly become part of a much larger and more dangerous experiment, and only time will reveal its effects on them.

Now the group of young adults are on the run from forces that want to turn them to the dark side. They must use every resource they haveold friends, new friends, money, and familyto stay one step ahead of those who are not just above the law, but who are the law.

In this science fiction novel, after an accident, a group of college students mistakenly given an experimental drug discover they have new powersand must now run for their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781480849709

Jason Christian

Jason Christian has been writing subversive literature such as this since he was fifteen years old, but he has only recently been exposed to the public. Aaron Gabel, his cocorruptor of the not-so-youthful, has been also working from the shadows as an idea man and known contributor for over twenty-five years. Both are unarmed and considered extremely harmless.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 Jason Christian and Aaron Gabel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4971-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4969-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4970-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952733

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/18/2017

To Christopher Cheese Penton. For his gift of humor, his friendship, and his love of games. You will be missed.

Contents

Part 1.           The Best of Times

Chapter 1     The Big Game

Chapter 2     Finals

Chapter 3     Party Time at the Harris ‘Nub Palace

Chapter 4     Comaland

Chapter 5     A Tragedy of Errors

Chapter 6     Freshman Blues

Chapter 7     Pranks and Stunts

Chapter 8     Comaland Visitations

Chapter 9     Beware the Chinese Curse: May You Live in Interesting Times.

Chapter 10   Come back to me, Mon Poppet

Chapter 11   They’re not Here

Chapter 12   Big Cousin Josh

Part 2.           Consequences

Chapter 13   Welcome Back, Cowboys

Chapter 14   Some Things, Once Seen, Can Never be Unseen

Chapter 15   It’s not Exactly Fantasy Football

Chapter 16   Sacking Security

Chapter 17   He’s Meat! Meat for the Beast!

Chapter 18   Hot and Steamy Fun with Lady Redbeard, Oh Yeah!

Chapter 19   Planning

Chapter 20   Mr. Grim

Chapter 21   Dark Reverie

Chapter 22   Morri$$_the_K@TT

Chapter 23   Bacchus Got Back

Chapter 24   Redemption

Chapter 25   Name, Prank, and Serial Number

Chapter 26   Bad Dreams

Chapter 27   Drive Time

Chapter 28   Frozen False Leads and Infosickles

Chapter 29   A Damsel in Decanter

Chapter 31   The Elder Speaks

Chapter 31   Sad Songs Say Too Much

Chapter 32   And the Walking Would be Such Good Exercise

Chapter 33   Preflight Checklist

Chapter 34   Blue 42…Omaha!

Chapter 35   …And A Dollar Short

Chapter 36   Ogre

Chapter 37   Keep In Touch

Chapter 38   Pompous Report

Chapter 39   Parking Lot Camp Out

Chapter 40   New Recruits

Chapter 41   Insomnia

Chapter 42   The Concert

Chapter 43   Muskrat Suzee…Muskrat Sam…It’s Mascot love…

Chapter 44   Heartbreak Hotel

Chapter 45   Big Blue Bridge

Chapter 46   Drive-Bys and Lullabies

Chapter 47   Ralph’s Hy-Pro Glow

Part 3.           The Runaround

Chapter 48   The Convention Scandal

Chapter 49   BioGennix Security gets *PWND!*

Chapter 50   Not So Independent Day

Chapter 51   Holly House Rules

Chapter 52   Our house…is very very very quiet house…with no cats in the yard…

Chapter 53:   It stands for Racial Holy War

Chapter 54   Surprise Phone Call

Chapter 55   Don’t Surprise him Like That.

Chapter 56   Truck Stop Rescue

Chapter 57   A BioGennix Love Story

Chapter 58   The Denny’s Massacre

Chapter 59   And he thought Ogre could throw a mean punch…

Chapter 60   Blind Inquiries

Chapter 61   So Long, My Friend

Chapter 62   It was NOT Wentworth’s Day

Chapter 63   Wakey Wakey

Chapter 64   Casino Royale

Chapter 65   Beware the Hamburglar!

Chapter 66   Let’s Go Fly an Osprey

Chapter 67   Not Your Average Tourist Trap

Chapter 68   When Planning Revenge…

Chapter 69   The Planning Session

Chapter 70   Broken Ankle Woods

Chapter 71   Knock knock

Chapter 72   Hercules Bird

Chapter 73   Uncle Charlie’s School of Dance

Chapter 74   Team-1 Status Report: Stick a Fork in Them, They’re Done.

Chapter 75   Epilogue: Finish Him!!!

Part 4.           Non-Sequiturs

Part 1:

The Best of Times

chapter 1

The Big Game

December

Memorial Stadium

University of Nebraska

1730 Hours

51360.png

Meagan Marie Masters

Meagan sat three rows up from center field on the University of Nebraska Gridiron, trying to watch the Big 12 championship game between Big Red and Oklahoma – two of the fiercest rivals in NCAA History. Mike Wazzen, her ‘date’ was so preoccupied with his new effin’ gadget, his ‘Pocket Secretary’, that she could have been doing the nasty with some scumbag right in front of him and he wouldn’t have even noticed.

She was tempted to take it from him and stuff it down her shirt.

Meagan would bet dollars to donuts that it would have remained safe too. The man didn’t have the balls to go for her cleavage if his life depended on it. It wasn’t like she was some ugly chick – no – she was actually pretty hot. She had a medium, somewhat thin and well-toned body which came from running every day, strawberry blonde hair with just enough curl to turn heads, and gray-blue eyes that came from a Scots-Irish heritage. She had to admit her top half wasn’t the biggest that men would see, but it wasn’t bad. And there were plenty of men who would stop to stare at her when she went jogging – just not her current date.

Maybe he was the ‘Perfect Gentleman’ type.

Gawd.

Not another one.

She was okay with the other team, but for once she wanted a date who preferred women – a male date who preferred women.

And no meteors this time, which was odd because at least three times a month there would be a meteor shower somewhere, and all the peeps at SETI were tracking each one. The meteor showers were so frequent as a matter of fact that she barely noticed them anymore.

A popcorn kernel bounced off her shoulder and landed on the currently empty seat in front of her – a good thing because the guy who’d been sitting there looked like some giant sized bad-ass biker-dude from hell. And after the second six pack that he’d finished, he’d most likely be buzzed enough to do something stupid, like start a fight. And the name on the back of his leather vest was so appropriate: Ogre.

Another one hit Wazzen, who turned around to see who threw it. Jay put his hand palm up, as if he’d just felt a rain drop. And then he took out an umbrella and opened it. Wazzen turned around and went back to his new toy, shrugging his shoulders against some non-existent rain shower.

How nice of him to offer her his jacket – as if.

Why was it that whenever she picked out some date from this ungodly small dating pool here at U of N that they all either turned out to be losers or scumbags? But every time one of her friends the Cowboys suggested someone they always turned out to be a total prancer-boy?

Do you know who’s gonna be at the party if they win? Ralph Gunnarson, a six foot tall Norse teddy bear of a man, spoke. He had the typical Computer Nerd look about him – an el-chubisimo with glasses and a geek wear t-shirt, usually sporting some kind of food stain – mustard, ketchup or even Special Sauce – something akin to mystery meat, which she was thankful to not know about. Ralph had two older sisters, the youngest of those was three years older than him, and both of these ladies had been athletes. What this meant was that whenever Meagan raised her voice, it made Ralph cringe as if expecting to get hit. But he was always nice to her too.

So few men her age understood that basic concept that it wasn’t even funny. And it wasn’t like she was the worst that the Mesa princess type had to offer, after all she almost never made catty remarks about all the dimbos out there within earshot. As a matter of fact, she was downright polite when it came to that.

Kendra and Michelle, and of course Meagan and Chanise. But they’d be there anyway. Jay said.

Kendra and Michelle were also Cowboys, but lived in Seward because they’d had to go to Junior College to get a few more extra credits before being able to transfer to Big Red. Her fellow Cowboys had gotten them good by telling them that Big Red’s Drama Club was hosting a masquerade party at Alpha Beta Kappa House at exactly 7:30 pm. The party was a Freshman Mixer that was Professional Dress – meaning shirt, tie, pants not jeans, women in blouses, etc. etc. The Cowboys very conveniently didn’t let anyone at Alpha House know beforehand, which added to the confusion and embarrassment. The following week they got payback by Kendra telling Kelvin that she was pregnant, and so was Michelle. And that he was the father of both of the children. The look on Kelvin’s face had been well worth it though because even after knowing the man for two years, it was still the first time she’d ever seen him break out in a cold sweat, especially after they’d told him about the minimum amount of child support he’d have to pay. The fact that the other Cowboys found a way to get him a box of rum-soaked Cuban cigars, along with books on infant care in the most embarrassing places every week for a month just added to the fun.

And then there was Keege – Timothy Dwayne Keegan – the nerd she’d kissed during his first year at Big Red.

Keege was always hyper. And he drank way too much Mounting Spew. He was tall – over six feet, but was thin as a rail and never stopped moving. He, Ralph and Jay shared the same major – Software Engineering. But Keege was more into game design. He’d already made a couple of flash games – one was called Dress a DuGard – and was a virtual paper dolls sort of thing – except with a variety of strange and hilarious outfits. One was a ballerina in a tutu, another was a one piece unitard with a female bodybuilder’s form underneath – complete with over the top muscle definition. And one was a redneck slut with a farmer’s tan. Not to mention ‘naughty nun’ and ‘naughty school-girl’. He was currently working on the internet version for a class project.

And last but not least was her friend and roommate Josh, BKA David James Jay Roland. She, Jay and Kalvyn BK Weeds had been homeless in Phoenix for the summer before getting into University of Nebraska. Josh had to change his real name and disappear from Arizona due to a scandal involving the daughter of the Dean of Law. Although she knew his real name, Meagan was sworn to secrecy. As it was the cops still scrutinized his D-L whenever they felt like it, expecting to catch that RSO Joshua Schmidt.

It was beyond unfair.

Thanks to that man, Josh, BK and her spent that summer living out of dumpsters and begging for money. Add to that dodging the one million pimps who wanted to get in her pants. By the end of July she’d been tempted to give hooking a try, just so she could actually get herself a hot shower and some effin’ room service, instead of the Dumpster Cuisine Du Jour that she’d been forced to live off of. One of the things she’d never thought of as a step up would be Slop Bra-Men and Always Lame hot dogs, but then again she’d never thought that she’d ever have to sleep in shifts to keep from getting gang raped either.

And then they’d gotten accepted into University of Nebraska.

That had been two years ago. Although born and raised in Mesa, her parents had let her know that they could not have her back in their house in the A-Z. She was, in all respects, on her own. It had felt like such a betrayal at that time that she could not even think of how to respond to it. She’d not been able to do anything then but hang up her phone and stare at the receiver for an hour afterwards.

Earlier on the news she’d heard that TRS – Titan Research and Security – had just recently opened up an aerospace plant at 39th and Winchester, in Kansas City – some geek news that Jay would just about get a nurdeegasm over. TRS was a major economic power player in Lincoln. They were opening up a facility in Kansas City. And it was all she could do to afford a new pair of shoes for Thanksgiving.

Gawd she hated being poor.

That one final popcorn kernel bounced off her shoulder.

That’s it!

Her teeth clenched involuntarily.

Meagan stood up, marched up the rows of seats to Jay, and said to him: I’m trying to have a date down here!

Trying or succeeding? Jay remarked.

Oh he was so going to get it!

She almost called him by his real name, but then stopped just long enough to remember the alias he went by. "I know where you sleep, Mr. David James Roland! And I will so pay you back –"

Suddenly all three of the men jumped up into the air cheering. And she saw that even Wazzen was standing and cheering. Whatever it was, she’d missed it.

And she turned around to see Adrian run – what 40 yards? All for a pick-six. The crowd erupted in a thunderous cheer – she could practically feel the ground shake under her feet from the roar of the crowd. And she almost missed it?!

Because of Jay?

Not only did she know where he slept, she knew where the itching powder was, and the silver nitrate. And if it was one thing she’d definitely learned over the past two years of living in that crappy, two bedroom tract house where they’d been, it was how to fix a shower head.

All she had to do was wait.

chapter 2

Finals

December

Masters Residence

Lincoln, Nebraska

Two Hours Before the Big Game

51371.png

David James Roland

It was getting close to the Zero-Hour for the Big 12 championship, and Jay sat at his desk in his rental house, where he finished up the last of the coding for his extra credit assignment. He then emailed it before getting up to leave. The project was a new IAI – Intuitive Artificial Intelligence driver that he’d come up with off the top of his head, which was designed to make craftier NPCs for Pocket Secretary-based games. The pocket secretary had to be the best thing to come along since the C-Phon nearly thirty years ago. The holographic avatar adapted to speech patterns, which allowed for more life-like interactions. When a person first got one, the avatar would ask them twenty questions, at the end of which the avatar would know enough about the person’s speech patterns that it would understand about ninety-four percent of what the person meant to say, despite any speech impediment the person might have.

The device had every feature that a modern C-Phon had, but also had WiFi and subterranean SULTAN ports. It had solar and house current rechargability, along with battery sockets for AA cells. Personality and style drivers built into the avatar made it original to his device, regardless of how many identical avatars might be out there. It had built-in USB and SD ports, allowing it to interface with any other device on the planet. It had a durable outer frame with a durable, resilient endoskeleton, along with brightly colored internals, making purchase and installation of upgraded hardware easy to replace. The inside might change, but the outside was designed to last, something that a lot of computer manufacturers did not do. The outer frame was also porous, and held any stickers or paint that the owner wanted to add to it.

He’d already finished his Calculus and Physics assignments, and was now free for the weekend. The night before he’d actually slept, something that he rarely allowed himself to do anymore because he was, aside from being a straight-A student, also the overnight sales clerk for the Circle-Pay that had opened up just outside of Lincoln. He borrowed Putt-Putt, Meagan’s 1982 Chevy Chevette, every night to get there. As rickety and rusty as Putt-Putt was, he had to admit that he’d never been in an accident when he’d driven it. The thing was a manual transmission, though, and that did take a little getting used to.

And then there was that faint orange glow that he would see at night, the gigantic comet known as the 5th Horseman that was slowly but surely headed towards Mars, just before it would do a near miss and head towards the center of the galaxy. At least that’s what all the experts said.

He could remember the final night he’d spent with his last girlfriend – Dena Karen Walters. Dena was pretty, smart, funny, charming, and a great conversationalist. And she was fun to be around. Neither of them had a car at the time, but both of them lived within walking distance of each other. And she was good friends with a lot of the faculty and staff at ASU. As a lover, she’d been nothing if not intriguing – at times as innocent as a virgin on her wedding night, and at other times fearless and almost aggressive in her desire to take the lead. What he’d not known at the time was exactly how overprotective or downright sneaky her father could be. Or how crafty. Dena could take care of herself, despite the fact that she suffered from Calliers Synaptic Dysfunction, a type of blindness where her optic nerve had never properly connected with her brain. It was a rare condition to say the least – only one in twelve thousand infants were ever born with it, and the vast majority of those were from Iceland. He’d never known that about her until she’d told him.

He’d fallen for her – something he hadn’t thought was possible considering that he’d never gotten over his wife Shellee – now better known as Amber Waves, lead singer of the Degenerates. He’d married Shellee when he was fourteen, thanks to the Church of the Higher Path. Had Josh not tweaked his birthdate to say that he was twenty one, it would never have happened. At the time he’d done that because his father Charles had told him that the only time Shellee and him were ever going to share a bed under his roof was if they were married.

They’d had a child, a daughter together, who’d been taken away from them. And then during that summer he’d been able to be with them both thanks to his friend K’MAART – at least long enough to be a family for a couple of months. It had been the happiest time of his life. K’MAART it turned out had an older brother with a mansion in Beverly Hills. He’d spent most of his summer there and at the beach.

And then the last time he’d been able to be close to her, Shellee told him afterward that she had to let him go. She had said that they could not make it work with her having to travel so much. That night while still in San Francisco he returned to the RV that his adoptive uncle Joe had borrowed for the road trip from Kansas City to San Francisco. Josh got drunk for maybe the third time ever, and then got into a fistfight with his dad. They’d had to be separated by Joe and his childhood friend Ray-Ray, and Joe had to talk them down because Josh at that point wanted to kill the man. Joe had to have a sit-down with each of them. At that time Joe told Josh that in no uncertain terms were he and his father were to even be in the same city together – as if that would have actually stopped him. It was not until Joe also told him that a prison sentence was going to hurt his baby-girl too that Josh relented. And after getting a ride in an Osprey – the signature aircraft of the BioGennix Corporation -- to the company’s Mesa Facility.

He lived with his uncle David and his daughter Mary until college began.

No one knew about this, however, except for a few friends and the rest of the Degenerates, who never talked about it. Shellee was terrified of their baby-girl getting taken by the slavers. Even to this day, it was a constant worry for both of them.

His Pocket Secretary came to life, and an avatar of Hugh Jackman’s version of Wolverine™ appeared before him, dressed in full BDUs. Although not gay, he didn’t have much of a desire to have a scantily clad female as his PS Avatar. It wasn’t that he didn’t find said women beautiful, it was that unless it was his girlfriend or his wife, he didn’t really care to see any of them naked. He couldn’t say whether that made him some kind of weirdo or not. Plus considering the fact that the last time he’d been with a woman was over two years ago, seeing any woman in anything that wasn’t professional and conservative was enough of a distraction as it was.

He missed Dena almost as much as he missed Shellee, but did pretty well about keeping both women out of his head.

Usually.

Your cousin Mary is calling. the Wolverine-style avatar said.

Put her through. Jay responded.

BCJ! It stood for Big Cousin Josh – her nickname for him.

LCM is in da house. Jay replied. Oh yeah!

LCM stood for Little Cousin Mary. Although she was his biological daughter, it was still his nickname for her.

When she turned sixteen then maybe he would tell her the truth about who her real father was. But until then, he had to abide by his uncle David’s wishes. He’d made that promise to Shellee before she’d told him to go back to Kansas City. He loved her – still loved her – enough to do anything she asked him to do – without question. But there were nights when the pain of missing her was a tangible feeling – an ache in his chest that left him cold and empty inside.

He never talked about his family, except to mention when he was headed out of town to see his cousin Nancy (Mary) and aunt Rebecca (Trish) for the holidays. He didn’t let anyone know who he really was if he could help it, because of the fact that he hadn’t removed all instances of him as an RSO from the Internet as of yet. Of course as payback for that, he’d registered Dena’s father as dead about once every Christmas for the last two years. Not to mention that every six months the man somehow got $500,000.00 worth of unpaid parking tickets. It turned out that the same connections that got Josh’s good name destroyed also had to fight tooth and nail to keep that rat-bastard out of prison, due to his allegedly horrible driving skills. Of course the cherry on top of that particular Sundae from Hell was when someone had forwarded said traffic tickets to Homeland Security with the notation that he was a known traffic menace in Tempe, Mesa, and Snottsdale. He’d heard that the interview itself had been enough to make even his KF brother and cage fighter Trouble squirm, but the press being there to record the man being escorted out of his home with a bunch of feds in suits had been enough to bar the man from any government position he might want to have. Seeing the man led out of his office by these very serious looking men had been enough to put a smile on his face.

He still owed Shimmer a favor for that last one.

Did you know that they have a body farm in Quantico? Mary-Catherine said.

How in the world did she know that?

He could not say, but Mary-Catherine’s fascination with dead things had certainly made her a black sheep amongst her family. What also got him was how she’d already been promoted two grades higher than any other five-year-old in the entire state of Arizona. Trish told him this in an email she’d sent a few months ago. He was proud of her, but at the same time almost grateful that she was in Uncle David’s custody. If she was anything like he was as a kid, they would definitely have their hands full just keeping her out of mischief.

"And I got A’s on all my tests. School is boring. I’d much rather be in a forensics lab or a coroner’s office. That would be so Loozir that I think I would just about die…"

And the girl was only five years old. Precocious too. Josh at that point wondered if the mother’s curse also applied to fathers:

May your children turn out to be just…like…you.

…Because someone put a dead dog in our back yard, Mary-Catherine was saying. and I wanted to examine it. But Mom, she totally went crazy-town. I mean – you’d think it had rabies or something…

The girl didn’t even realize that the dead dog was supposed to be an act of harassment, not a gift.

…and so she had Dad put it in a trash bag. And then at Sacrament Dad got up and talked about it, and also talked about what the Prophet Joseph Smith went through while he was in Missouri…

Jay tried to say something, but couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

…Oh…I know…maybe you could come down here to the A-Z and we could go see this exhibition that’s coming to town. It’s about new procedures on autopsies…Oh! That’s mom. Gottagobye.

With that Mary hung up. It took a second for him to process everything that she said.

His Mary was starting to talk like a teenager and she was barely large enough to sit in a regular sized car seat. Of course he too had been a late bloomer.

Didn’t she have a really tall friend there named Agnes? Oh yeah! Now he remembered. Agnes Gale Bunter.

There were times around sunrise when he’d be close to waking up, and he would pine for his wife and daughter for a minute, just before forcing the thought out of his head and getting focused on his first task of the day.

Then of course there had been the pranks and the publicity stunts – something that the Cowboys were notorious for. They even had their own web page dedicated to their various shenanigans during the two years that Josh had been there.

One time BK and Kelvin had gotten him so good that Josh hadn’t spoken to either one of them for a week. It wasn’t that he was being childish, no, it was the fact that he’d run out of ideas on payback, and so really had to work at it to come up with something just as evil. Kelvin and BK had made some phone calls, and set him up on a blind date – with a new transfer from Cali -- or so they’d said. They told him to come down to Cody’s apartment to meet her. They’d told him that she was shy.

And he fell for this hook, line and sinker

They’d also talked him into dressing up, and bringing flowers --on account of the fact that she was the romantic type.

And so he’d gone to Cody’s place dressed to the nines in his recently altered tux from his wedding and freshly polished dress shoes --

– Only to come face to face with a female bison, complete with a pink ribbon in her mane. Kelvin walked up to him and handed him a condom, something Josh had done to others on plenty of occasions in the past when he’d volunteered to hand out safe sex pamphlets courtesy of the Children’s Awareness League. Kelvin then told him: Remember, a condom shows you care.

The buffalo ate the flowers, and the two of them had figured out how to set up a nanny-cam, so everyone who knew about the Cowboys website got to see Josh and his hot date.

And there was also now a website out there called hottdates_4J.org, a non-profit site which posted farm animals and the occasional zoo specimens, usually wearing something suggestive. And of course the signature pink ribbon in their hair.

Eneehoo…

Jay put his textbooks away and got a couple of things for the after-game party that they were headed to in Seward. That is, assuming that they won.

chapter 3

Party Time at the Harris ‘Nub Palace

December

Harris Residence

Seward, Nebraska

One Hour After the Big Game

51377.png

David James Roland

Jay, Ralph and Keege arrived twenty minutes before anyone else. This in itself was out of the ordinary because Ralph was anal about doing his five-point checklist, and everyone buckling up when he drove, which was never above the speed limit. The Cowboys as a matter of fact had a game they’d come up with called Count the Honkies, which referred to how many people honked and drove past Ralph because he was such a cowardly driver.

Morris let them in and they began to set up for the party.

Michelle arrived, along with Kendra, Morris’s older sister. Kelvin had been dating Kendra for the past several months, and they were getting pretty serious. That is, aside from the entire month that she didn’t speak to him, thanks to their Initiation prank, but that was by necessity. It was after all in the Cowboy’s bylaws: Every Initiate will be pranked, and it will be humiliating. But after that the considerably less prideful initiate was a Cowboy for the rest of time eternal. Even in death a Cowboy remained a Cowboy. As a bonus they each got a pressed straw cowboy hat with a signature red ribbon as a sign of membership.

So do you need anything? Ralph asked. The man was always generous to his friends. He was one of those very few people out there who truly believed in sharing the wealth. Often times other people would buy him food because he would go out of his way to help people in need. One time Josh saw him buy a homeless man and entire lunch from the commissary because that man had been busted for raiding the dumpsters outside of the student center. He never seemed to have a date, but Josh thought that secretly Ralph might be saving himself for marriage, and that women scared him, even at the age of nineteen.

Nope. By the way, does Meagan need to remember to shave for the party? Morris asked, reminding Joshua of Meagan’s initiation prank into the Cowboys from Hell. Josh had turned her into Lady Redbeard – a nickname guaranteed to get a rise out of her.

When she’d woke up that morning, about a year and a half ago, he’d had the good sense to not be around – especially after he’d gotten a picture of her with the beard – and associated eyepatch -- while she was still asleep. A couple of his friends in Honors Chemistry had come up with an epoxy that was hypoallergenic, yet fused that beard to her face so effectively that there was no way for her to remove it short of a lightsaber or Mark II Phaser, neither of which actually existed. The beard would fall off on its own in about ten hours. But until then, Meagan’s new nickname was Lady Redbeard. The vast majority of students at Big Red had the wisdom to not say anything to her face, or whisper anything when she was in earshot. A couple of guys however did say something, but only once. From what he’d heard, that day she not only made every man on campus under the age of twenty jealous of said masculine feature, but the look she had on her face for the day was the very definition of the term Murder in her Eyes. And the payback had of course been just as terrible, but thinking back on it, was actually worth it. That particular prank would have been grounds for Nebraska being the first state to put into effect a justifiable homicide law for roommates. Plus Josh had learned a very interesting lesson in creative chemistry firsthand: Hershey’s Syrup and Ex-lax chocolates did completely cover the taste of Syrup of Ipecac. Especially when